


All my layers can become reeds

by heavenisalibrary



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-25
Updated: 2016-01-09
Packaged: 2018-04-23 09:10:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4871197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heavenisalibrary/pseuds/heavenisalibrary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She wasn’t used to was the Doctor cooking. And cooking something he knew River liked, with specific ingredients she knew, in a way that implied ritual. The Doctor cooked. On a regular basis.</p><p>“I didn’t know you cooked,” Clara said.</p><p>“Sweetie!” River gasped in mock horror. “Have you been starving Clara?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hihoplastic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hihoplastic/gifts).



> Based on Kaz's answer to 'who cooks in the relationship' on a tumblr ask meme: "Eleven. He’s a phenomenal cook, even if he’d rather eat fish fingers and custard, and doesn’t do it very often, but he cooks for River. Because she likes it. And it’s a way for him to show he cares without having to say any actual words."
> 
> I took liberties — implying he cooks for River often, Twelve not Eleven — but credit to her because I'm a useless lump stealing other people's ideas yayyyyy. This'll be three parts (Clara's POV, River's POV, the Doctor's POV of different instances of this) eventually, one day, as I never update anything in a timely fashion.

Clara never thought of the Doctor as being particularly domestic. Well, she never thought of him being domestic at all. In fact, picturing the Doctor in a house that wasn’t also a time machine, doing mundane things like laundry and cooking and cleaning and making his bed was so bizarre that she almost couldn’t picture it at all — with bowtie, certainly not. Once or twice she wasn’t ready to leave, and so bowtie had hung around her place until she was ready, but if it took her more than five minutes he usually couldn’t even stand that. This new Doctor, this older, steadier, and in many ways colder Doctor was a little easier to picture doing small days; he could at least sit still for more than five minutes, although only barely. Still. The Doctor in the TARDIS, next stop everywhere — that was the pitch. Anything else was just… so unlikely as to be almost completely impossible.

Consequently, she was shocked to stumble into the TARDIS kitchen for breakfast one morning and find the Doctor amidst stacks of bowls and pans and cutlery, a series of complicated-looking ingredients in various states of preparation over the counters and something divine wafting through the room from the stove top. Eyes wide, she immediately made a beeline for the stove, shoving him aside slightly to peer into the pan. She grabbed a spoon and reached toward the pan to taste whatever cheesy, egg-y concoction he had brewing that smelled like heaven, but before she could, he slapped her wrist and shoved her back out of the way.

“Rude,” Clara grumbled, stepping back.

“ _Me_?” he said, glaring at her over his shoulder as he began to stir it, changing the temperature settings on the oven with his free hand as he did. Clara was accustomed to a certain degree of freaky competence from the Doctor in unexpected areas, but to see him so comfortable and deft in the kitchen was certainly a surprise. “You just tried to put a dirty spoon in my frittata.”

“I didn’t even know you knew what a frittata was,” Clara said.

“I’m a thousand years old,” he huffed, “of course I know what a frittata is.”

“Alright, fine,” Clara said, “I didn’t even know you knew what an oven was.”

“How do you think I eat?” he asked, stopping what he was doing to turn around and face her. She could tell he was annoyed — although he always was, in this body — but there was a bit of self-consciousness in the way that he shook out the sleeves of his jacket that reminded her of bowtie and it made her squint. When she didn’t respond he just huffed and when back to cooking. “I can cook.”

“I can see that,” she said. “It smells fantastic. You sure it’s not takeout?”

“We’re in the time vortex,” the Doctor said with a roll of his eyes. “You can’t _get_ takeout here.”

“Not with that attitude, you can’t,” River said, stepping into the kitchen in her usual attire of tight trousers and a functional top, not yet tucked in and socks on her feet. Her hair was still damp from, Clara assumed, the shower, and she dropped her utility belt on the table as she passed. Many times though she'd seen it, it was still so odd to see River Song, the absolute super hero, in various states of undress (and _certainly_ more than she'd like — although some she liked that the Doctor clearly wished she didn't. But that wasn't the point.) Pausing to smile at Clara and give her shoulder a friendly squeeze, River stepped right up behind the Doctor, pressing herself against his beck and standing on her toes to peer over his shoulder. He didn’t push her away in the least. “Is that —”

“Frittata,” he said, “with an assortment of mushrooms, cheeses, and a unique mixture of spices even your clever tongue couldn’t place, Dr. Song.”

Clara gagged. The Doctor shot her another glare, but River just laughed low in her throat, pressing a kiss to the side of his neck and running her hands down his sides as she stepped away from him, heading toward the tea the Doctor had apparently already steeped in a pot off to the side. She poured herself a mug, and then raised one to Clara with a questioning look. Clara nodded gratefully, and slumped over to the table. It was too early to take in any of this.

“I do love it when you cook. Are they the mushrooms from —”

The Doctor scoffed. “Who do you think you’re talking to? Of course. As though I would cook with anything less.”

River walked over to the table with a mug of tea for herself and for Clara, which Clara accepted gratefully, wrapping her hands around it as River sat down across from her.

“And the cheeses?” River asked, sipping her tea and smiling at Clara knowingly as the Doctor turned around just long enough to roll his eyes at her. Clearly this was a ritual.

“Bought off that lovely fellow in nineteenth century Paris,” the Doctor said.

“Oh, Luc? How is he?”

“Pregnant,” the Doctor said. “Well, no, not _him_. But that wife of his. With _triplets_.”

“Poor fellow,” River said.

“Poor? You practically forced them down the aisle,” he said, “you can’t pity him for being up a creek you pushed him down.”

River laughed. “He had cold feet, what was I going to do, let his whole life fall apart? I’m sure they’ll be brilliant parents, but honestly, who needs three in one go.”

“Still,” he said, “we should pop round in nine months or so their time.”

“Definitely,” River said, “I know just the gift.”

“River, _no_ ,” the Doctor said, sounding exasperated as he turned off the stovetop and moved the frittata into the oven. He wiped his hands off on a kitchen towel — Clara didn’t even know that the Doctor _had_ kitchen towels, let alone that _he_ knew he had kitchen towels, _and_ knew where to find them.

“Please, sweetie? It’s been in the TARDIS forever, poor thing.”

“You can’t give human infants a three headed flesh-eating planet.”

“But they’ll match!”

Clara couldn’t help but laugh at that, and both River and the Doctor immediately turned to look at her. Simultaneously they shouted —

“Tell her it’s a terrible idea —”

“Tell him it’s a brilliant idea —"

— and Clara just mimed zipping her lips shut as the Doctor grabbed the towel and tossed it across the room at River, who caught it, and folded it neatly on the table. She’d traveled with the Doctor quite a while, and of course they had their inside jokes and their shorthand, but she’d never seen anybody talk to the Doctor the way River did. There was an understanding there, and the sort of shorthand that only came from an incredibly long time of knowing somebody incredibly well. It still made her feel vaguely like she were watching her parents flirt, but it also was sort of nice, in a way. The Doctor seemed to have had many friends throughout his lifetime, but for all of that, Clara knew he was lonely. It was nice to know that he had River, at least sometimes.

What she wasn’t used to was the Doctor cooking. And cooking something he knew River liked, with specific ingredients she knew, in a way that implied ritual. The Doctor _cooked_. On a regular basis.

“I didn’t know you cooked,” Clara said.

“Sweetie!” River gasped in mock horror. “Have you been starving Clara?”

“ _No_ ,” he said with a long suffering sigh, peaking at the frittata in the oven before turn back toward the women with a pronounced glare.

“He takes me out to eat,” Clara said, “to some great places, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen him in the kitchen.”

River raised a brow. “Never?”

“Never,” Clara said. “I didn’t even know he knew where it was.”

River turned around to glance at the Doctor, who immediately turned his back on them both and bent down to peer in the oven. He reached for the potholder and removed their breakfast from the oven, carrying it over to the table and setting it down in the center, studiously avoiding any eye contact the whole time.

“He’s an excellent cook,” River said, still looking somewhat confused as the Doctor left the table to grab some plates and cutlery. “Although to be fair, he’s had longer than most to get good at it. You cook all the time, honey.” There was a question in her voice despite her neutral statement, and as the Doctor sat down at the table, he almost physically shied away from it, fussing over the frittata instead.

“Of course I do,” he said, “and I’m not _starving_ her, River. It’s her silly human sleeping schedule. I cook when I’m hungry. It’s not my fault she sleeps half her life away.”

“River sleeps,” Clara said, watching the Doctor cut the frittata with care.

“Not as much as you,” the Doctor said.

“Not as much as I’d like when I’m here,” River corrected.

Clara glared at her, but River just smiled serenely. Knowing that the Doctor — _the Doctor_ — was well and truly married and had a sex life was scarring enough without River gleefully reminding her of that fact at every opportunity.

“So you’ll cook for River, but not for me?” Clara said, mostly joking, but the Doctor stiffened the moment she said it, his mouth fixed in a straight line as he placed a slice of frittata on Clara’s plate, and then on River’s and then on his own.

Clara was going to prod him further when she looked up to see River resting her hand on his wrist where it rested on the table, her fingers curling around his forearm as she looked at him like he hung the very moon. He stared studiously at his plate, working his jaw like he was trying to resist talking or smiling or doing anything at all, a faint flush creeping up his neck.

This was one of those moments that Clara didn’t particularly enjoy spending time with the Doctor and River, when she felt like she were an interloper and needed to remove herself from the situation, but there was nothing to be done about it. So instead she ducked her head and took a bite of the, frankly, _impossibly_ delicious frittata on her plate and tried so hard not to smile as she chewed that her cheeks began to ache when River finally spoke.

“Thank you for breakfast, sweetie.”

“You’re welcome, dear.”

The Doctor didn’t tend to do small moments. He liked pivotal moments in history, and world wars, and intergalactic catastrophes to play in. Clara knew he hated Thursdays and Tuesdays and Sunday afternoons, and he couldn’t stand sitting still long enough to so much as watch a film. It was why she had such difficulty picturing him doing anything domestic, like cooking or doing laundry or cleaning. But if she’d learned anything since River had started popping back into his life again, it was that River Song was the exception to the Doctor’s very many rules.

For River, he did small moments. And that was a big gesture that even Clara couldn’t mock him for.

****  
  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is so fluffy. SO FLUFFY.

It was a bit odd, wandering out of her bedroom in his button-up shirt, and finding him bustling around her kitchen like a mad man. River supposed that this was less strange than it would've been to wake up next to him, in her bedroom, in bed, like a normal couple. Of course, she'd woken up next to him in the past, but usually in strange places, or on the floor of the TARDIS, or on the chaise in the library, or just about anywhere they'd gotten tangled up and distracted and subsequently too tired to move an inch. She'd woken up next to him on distant planets and spaceships, on galactic trains and freighters, and just about any other ridiculous scenario and location she could bring to mind, but he rarely stayed over at her flat. She was fine with that, really. She was just as allergic to domesticity as he was, and if given the choice between a quiet evening in her flat, and running about pissing off Sontarans, she'd quickly pick the latter.

But she had to admit, there was something that warmed her as she stood at the doorway to her kitchen, digging her toes into the plush carpet as she watched him whirl around in nothing but his pants and socks. He looked ridiculous, but so irritatingly charming and endearing as he glanced up at her through his mussed hair and smirked. He set to stirring a bowl filled with some sort of batter, looking quite concentrated, all long pale limbs, a smudge of batter on his hip above the elastic of his pants, his fingers drumming restlessly against the side of the bowl. She wanted to eat him up.

"Can I help?" she asked, shaking herself a bit and stepping over the threshold of the kitchen. The tiles were cold against her feet, and she abruptly forgave him for keeping his socks on, even though they looked stupid.

"Not a chance," he said, shaking his head. He set the bowl on the counter and reached out to grab a second bowl, pouring white powder into his batter and then resuming his rapid stirring. "Just sit back, relax, and I'll have an astoundingly delicious breakfast ready for you in a mo, you watch."

River raised a brow, but didn't fight him, hopping up to the small section of counter space he hadn't covered with bowls and bags and utensils, clearly having upended her kitchen looking for what he needed.

"I didn't know you cooked," River said.

He winced, only very slightly, before turning away, and she immediately knew that this would become a  _thing_. The Doctor liked to cook, and he would cook for her often, and he realized that none of that had happened for her yet. She considered poking and prodding him for an explanation, but she knew that anything she really wanted to know would just be met with 'spoilers', and so she just settled farther back onto the counter, crossing her legs at the ankles and swinging her feet back and forth as she watched him.

"Blueberries?" he asked after a few moments, holding up what looked like a small burlap sack that most definitely did not come from her kitchen.

"Love them," she said, and he gave her that smug little eye rolls he knew meant  _I know_ before upending the bag into the bowl of batter. "Where'd you get them? I never have produce in the house. I'm seldom here long enough to eat it before it goes bad."

"Popped out earlier this morning," he said. "I tried to wake you but you  _growled_ at me."

"Sweetie," she said, glancing at the clock on the stove, "it's only seven in the morning  _now_. You're lucky I didn't castrate you."

"Is that a danger?" he asked, sounding more amused than threatened, which once would've bothered her a bit, but now just made her smirk at his nonchalance. "Should I be expecting that, any time I try to wake you before you're ready?"

"Depends on how you do the waking," she said.

He raised his brows, turning away from her slightly to set the batter down and turn her stovetop on, heating a long, flat skillet on it that most certainly didn't come from her kitchen, either. Actually, she realized, glancing around, most of the implements and ingredients he was using weren't hers, and they didn't seem to come from the same place, either. She recognized the label on the bag of flour as belonging to an Aplan super market chain she'd nipped into once or twice, and there were a couple smaller jars of spices and powders labelled in a language even she could only barely piece together. It looked like he'd put a great deal of time and effort into putting together breakfast. It was a strange thought — that something so silly, small, and domestic would catch his attention and hold it like this, but she decided not to question him, at least until he'd fed her.

"I just asked you politely," he said, fiddling with the skillet.

"There are better ways to wake me using your mouth," she said, "or at the very least, more effective."

" _River_ ," he said, a flush creeping up the back of his neck, as though he hadn't spent the better part of the previous day and night tangled up in bed with her. Sometimes, she found his feigned innocence endearing; sometimes she found it incredibly irritating. This morning, lucky for him, it was the former. "Stop being inappropriate and make yourself some tea."

River glanced over where he gestured vaguely with his hand to see that he'd already prepared it and set it out with milk and sugar — she definitely hadn't had any milk in her kitchen — ready to consume. Feeling a little dazed as she slid off the counter and poured herself a mug. She immediately turned back around to watch him as he took to flipping the perfectly round, golden, and fluffy pancakes in the pan, still trying to make sense of the situation. _  
_

She was used to the Doctor in motion — running through and mucking about in history, throwing himself full-bodied into dangerous situations, grabbing his hand and tugging him down a corridor, his hands running rapidly over computer interfaces and control boards, speaking all of those clever words so fast she was always surprised his mouth didn't get sore.  _This_  Doctor was a different animal entirely. Of course, he was still rife with energy, tapping his fingers against the countertops, twirling the spatula in his grasp, blowing his hair out of his face, shifting his weight forward and back. But there was a calmness and a control to him that she wasn't used to. He patiently waited until the pancakes were properly cooked before flipping them slowly, methodically, moving from left to right across the two rows on his skillet before passing the cooked pancakes onto a plate he set off to the side. He carefully watched the batter as he poured it anew onto the griddle, making sure each pancake was exactly the same size. He hummed under his breath, something low and warm, and there was a bit of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

He'd pulled aside the curtains from the window over the stove, and the morning light filtered through, soft and dappled from the leaves of the artificially cultivated tree in River's back yard, making his bare skin bright and smooth and flawless, save for the freckles she knew by heart — a small cluster by his hip, one at the base of his spine, just above the elastic of his pants, a sprinkling over his shoulders. She's traced them many times with her fingers and her lips and her memory. His hair was still mussed, as though he hadn't bothered to straighten himself up before going to do whatever his version of grocery shopping was, although it occurred to her that he must've gotten dressed to go out, and then come back and  _undressed_ , and the idea of him stripping down to be casual and cozy with her for breakfast was almost too much to stand. While she watched him, he reached his hand into the batter and plucked out a blueberry, popping it quickly into his mouth, a smudge of blue bleeding out over his top lip before he licked it off. She lost time, watching him work in her kitchen, and the next thing she knew she heard the click of the dials on her stove as he turned it off.

He had a plate stacked high with perfect-looking blueberry pancakes resting on the countertop, and was wiping his hands off on a kitchen towel — which she also was fairly certain did not belong to her — when she set her tea down on the counter beside her and made a beeline for him. Coming up behind him, she wrapped and arm around his neck, digging her fingers in gingerly to the side of his neck and tugging him toward her so that she could kiss him. He flailed slightly, stumbling sideways before he managed to find his footing and turn his torso to face her, resting one palm against the side of her face. His lips were soft and warm against hers, a little dry, and tasted faintly of the blueberries he'd been stealing. She sighed into him, letting herself melt against him as he turned to face her fully and really,  _really_ kissed her, the sort of way any normal girl who'd grown up in any normal way would've dreamed about, even when he stepped on her bare foot with his stockinged feet. She let her hands slide down from his shoulders over his front, dragging her fingertips along his bare skin until she reached the elastic of his pants, hooking the top knuckle of her fingers in it. It was then he pulled away, sighing softly and blowing his hair out of his face.

"None of that," he said, grabbing her hands and kissing each wrist before dropping them in favor of the plate of pancakes behind him. "They'll get cold."

"We can reheat them."

" _No,"_ he said, looking absolutely horrified at the thought as she followed him to the table, which he'd apparently set. The wonders, apparently, would never cease. "They'll be rubbish reheated. You've got to try them  _fresh_."

"Not that I'm ever surprised at the hobbies you take up in your spare time," she said, "but this is the first useful one you've revealed."

"Don't be rude, River Song, or I'll never cook for you again."

He set a hearty stack of pancakes in front of her, topped with butter and a bit of syrup, and it looked like something out of a magazine. She grabbed her fork and glanced up at him; he was leaning against one of her chairs, watching her with an expression caught between excitement and apprehension. Trying to roll her eyes at him, but not quite managing to hide her smile, she cut off a piece of pancake with her fork and took a bite.

It was, of course,  _stupidly_ delicious. Easily the best pancake she'd ever had, probably the best breakfast, perhaps even the best meal. She closed her eyes as the bit of pancake practically melted on her tongue and couldn't help but groan a bit at the flavor. When she looked back up at him he was beaming.

"Good?"

"You know they are," she said.

"Yeah, but — do you... do you  _like_ them?"

"Of course I do," she said. "You're a proper, full-service husband."

He smiled at her, but the expression didn't quite reach his eyes as he settled into the chair across from her, helping himself to a plate. She watched him quietly for a moment.

"They're delicious, sweetie," she said. "Best pancakes I've ever had in my entire life. Thank you for cooking. And getting the ingredients."

"You really like them?" he asked, twirling his fork between his fingers. "Because if you don't — it's fine. I can just toss them out and we can go get food somewhere else, you know, see some planets, cause some trouble, grab a bite in the middle like we usually do. I just thought it might be nice. Home cooked meal. Et cetera."

She knew that the Doctor wasn't good with emotion — he could make a speech to bring tears to the eyes of just about anyone, he could scare the living daylights out of Hitler himself if the mood struck him, but words of affection? She didn't really know why — perhaps because everybody in his life tended to come and go so often — but he couldn't ever get them out. She didn't really question that he loved her. He showed up enough, and  _stayed_ enough, that she could connect the dots even if he'd never explicitly said it. He knew how she took her tea and that she preferred coffee on week days and threw an arm over her shoulders to fold her into his side when she was cold but wouldn't admit it and remembered the exact spot on her neck that made her brain fizzle out of her ears and sometimes, when he thought she wasn't looking, he looked at her with his feelings written so plainly on his face that she  _couldn't_ doubt him. Besides, she hadn't exactly been raised in a stable or consistent environment; she knew what too much change and loss could do to someone, how it could twist emotions and make you doubt, make even good feelings hurt a little deep down. It wasn't like she was perfectly well-adjusted, either. The small moments that she doubted he even realized he did so well didn't come as easily to her. She was more comfortable with big, time-stopping gestures. Unconscious touches to the small of her back and the way his thumb swept over her wrist when he grabbed her hand were harder.

This, she realized, was one of those small moments. She wasn't sure if she'd ever get a proper  _I love you_ from him, but, as she set down her fork and leaned toward him, reaching her hands out to clasp over his where he drummed his finger anxiously against the table top, that was alright with her. River had never been one for insecurity, and if actions like this were the way he communicated best, she would make sure he knew he was being heard. She squeezed his hands tightly, leaning close to him as she could.

"I love them, sweetie," she said.

His face lit up, and he flipped his hands over so that he could instead entwine his fingers with hers, giving her hands a firm squeeze as he brought them up to his lips to kiss the back of each. 

"Good," he said, "I just wanted to be sure. Sometimes people don't appreciate the magnitude of my cooking." The Doctor let her hands go, reaching for a fork to start in on his own plate, his eyes dancing away from her. He spoke like he was referring to the caliber of his skill, but she knew he was still talking about her, and him, and the space between them neither quite knew how to address.

"You cook for others, then? Why, Doctor, I'm almost offen —"

"No," he interrupted, still looking at his plate. "Stop it. I cook for you."

He glanced up briefly, his eyes holding hers until she nodded, and he nodded back, and then went back to his pancakes. 


End file.
